Global Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Leadership Crisis and Nation Building in Nigeria: A Symptom of Governance Failure

Agboola Theophilus Olumuyiwa, Dr. Lamidi Kazeem Oyedele and Shiyanbade Bolanlewaliu

In the wealth of literature on state failure, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the question of what constitutes state success and what enables a state to succeed. This paper examines the strategies and tactics of government bureaucrats, political leaders and civil society groups, to build or rebuild public institutions before they reach the point of failure: to make the state work. In Nigeria, the public sector has become an epitome of all that is corrupt, fraudulent and self-egoistic. Self-egoistic is preferred to national interest and leadership crisis prevalent at all levels of decision-making has further deepened the imbroglio. The paper adopts personal interview technique method leading to the generation of primary data and further adopts desk research method; mainly from secondary source and also adopts analytical research in arriving at findings. A mini interaction with few randomly selected academicians, civil organisation, politicians, market men and women were sought to elicit information on leadership crisis and national development in Nigeria. The findings revealed that Nigeria has lost traction in its attempt to achieve nation’s development because of politics, ethnicity, socio-economic inequalities, building institutions for democracy and development, appropriate constitutional settlement and corrupted process of recruitment of leaders, among other factors. It is against this backdrop that the paper examines the developmental topics, the role of public sector in Nigeria, the primacy of Political leadership in nation building and the challenges facing leadership and nation building in Nigeria as fundamental obstacles on the path to nation building in Nigeria, hence the need to surmount them. Nations are built by men and women who have the will and vision to accomplish greatness, not for themselves only, their immediate families and friends, but for their country.